Eternal Sunshine

of the Spotless Mind

(Michel Gondry, 2004)

I like the metaphor of the snow-covered beach that is featured so prominently in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. Sand is more than tiny little rocks. It is a constant despite the coming and going of ceaseless tides, pulled in and out by a moon lying in a bed of constellations. Some people enter our lives like a snowfall, and though they also come and go, they repeatedly affect us through memory. Joel and Clementine drag each other along the beach and the sand and snow mix. When we’re deeply in love, it is often difficult to keep in mind where we end and the other person begins.

This is a movie that hits the tragicomic sentiment spot on in dazzling moment after dazzling moment with innovation and an unreal poetic control. It is the most romantic film I’ve ever seen because its technique is inseparable from its execution. We see the ache and torment and hostility of Joel and Clementine’s relationship, and by the time they have forgotten one another, we are truly convinced that it was worthwhile.


If I’m getting ahead of myself, it’s only because I’m still under the influence of the film’s narrative structure. Joel and Clementine have been dating for a period. Slowly but surely, they drive each other crazy and end the relationship. Joel is shy, reserved and socially inept. Clementine is his opposite. She’s the kind of girl that writer Charlie Kaufman must have fantasized about - someone who would come along and bring him out of himself. “I still thought you were going to save my life,” Joel admits, and even his memory of Clementine admonishes him for the pressure that places on her.

Their story is told backward, as one horrifying memory of Clementine’s vindictiveness and bile after another is eliminated from Joel’s head in a procedure that doesn’t exist but would build lines around the block if it did. Eventually, Joel recognizes that there are some memories he wants to hold onto after all, so the film becomes a frenetic, surreal chase sequence wherein Joel leads Clementine through different parts of his memory in order to travel off the grid, so to speak.


Of course, this poses all kinds of questions about the identity of the self and one’s perception of events. Clementine probably isn’t as horrible as Joel remembers. How often do our memories actually map directly to the truth of any situation? We grow to understand that Joel is remembering emotional responses to a chain of events. A movie told in the realm of Clementine’s memory would be much different. We come to accept Joel’s point of view as just that and forgive Clementine for behaviour that we can’t witness firsthand.

The introduction and conclusion of the film are fascinating as standalone sequences, especially after we understand that Joel and Clementine are each acting on the thinnest wisp of emotional instinct to subconsciously beat their memory loss and find each other again. The film’s opening is my all-time favourite – a near 20 minute introduction of the characters that begins with Joel making an impulsive decision and narrating his own insecurities.

In the past, I’ve commented that the film’s opening sequence struck me so powerfully when I saw it for the first time that I forgot I was watching a movie. There’s something about a story that builds at just the right tempo and conveys just the right take on a set of ideas and concepts. It replaces my awareness with an eagerness to find out how the rhythm will develop.


So few films hit that mark. I’ll credit Kaufman, whose screenplays have impressed me more and more since I first saw “Being John Malkovich” and disliked it 10 years ago. His more recent “Synecdoche, NY” told one of the most effective and accurate stories of an artist’s creative process that I’ve ever seen. He knows how to express a fear of loneliness and not being able to measure up far better than most. Pairing him with a director as inventive as Michel Gondry allows for a startling visualization of some extraordinarily intricate arcs and ideas.

I’ve seen the movie many times and heard some of Gondry’s techniques explained, and part of the fun of watching the film now is looking at how he pulls off certain tricks. What he seems to appreciate first and foremost are unlikely pairings, and the collision of Joel’s memories affords him a wide palette. It’s impressive to think that a director would go to the extent of ordering the back of a car filled with sand for a three second shot, or a bed placed on a beach in a snowstorm. They’re memorable visuals in a film about memory loss.


I saw the movie three or four times in theatres when it came out in 2004. I remember it finding me at a time in my life when everything seemed coincidental and harmonious. I mentioned the film in a chapbook that I wrote entitled “Joel”, which also happens to be my middle name. I’ve watched the movie with a few women with a great interest in their reactions. Personally, I’ve always watched it to reaffirm the truth that love, no matter how much pain, displeasure and emotional torture it can cause, is worth it for the one memory where that other person looks blurry and vulnerable under a bed sheet, telling you something very personal and difficult on the chance that you’ll accept them anyway.

Joel and Clementine have just met at the end of Eternal Sunshine. They have heard via taped interviews about how they might end up feeling about each other. When we first meet another person, we only let them know so much about ourselves. We believe that we maintain an attraction thanks to things left unsaid. However, the more time we spend with another person, the more we want to exchange that idea of attraction for something more honest. We want to be attractive for, and perhaps in spite of, who we are.

Joel thinks that’s fine. Clementine laughs. It’s worthwhile, after all.

(For additional stills of the film that I posted to the Livejournal film_stills community, visit: film_stills)


Three more reviews to go.